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Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

Elon is a man on a mission – to save mankind and colonize other planets. His vision, determination, guts are truly inspiring. He might offend others and create some enemies but I think on a mission like his it is hard to avoid and worth it

Key Takeaways

Ashlee was turned down initially by Musk but kept pestering him and eventually he agreed to help with the book

Leaves very little time to decompress, works from LA and SF every week, employees oddly loyal due to his vision and drive although he berated them, gulfs down food, big presence,

His driving mission for everything is increasing the collective consciousness and enlightenment

Musk had a pretty rough childhood in South Africa – father did some sort of psychological abuse

Was an awkward kid in many ways. Could enter a trance mode when he was thinking or reading. Was often bullied by kids at school

After selling zip2 (google maps and yelp combo), he started x.com which would eventually become PayPal. His role is a bit controversial as his combative style pissed off a lot of people but he clearly was one of the cofounders. There was a coup where he was replaced by thiel as CEO

Musk has superhuman energy, endurance and curiosity. He pushes himself and his people beyond their limits and often caused rifts with his employee

The falcon 1 finally launched on March 2006 but ended up crashing. It took 3 nerve racking failures before a success. This last launch was the last one thy could afford

Martin Eberhard founded Tesla and helped it get off its feet

Managerial style is to get people to own their commitments. “I need the impossible done by Friday. Can you do it?”

Brought in Fisker to help with the model S design but soon after Fisker released his own hybrid. Musk sued but ended up losing. Then turned to Apple’s Tony Fidel and Franz Von Hofhausen

Tesla was able to wow many large auto manufacturers like Daimler and GM and secured some money. They also got a loan from the government

After the successful launch of the Model S, Tesla was soon back on the brink of bankruptcy but went ahead with expanding their charging power grid

Musk took people from every corner of the company and put them in sales. At the same time, due to money issues, he made a handshake deal with Larry page for Google to buy Tesla. However, the new salesmen did a great job and sold a lot of cars

Musk is doing incredible things due to his vision and determination

What I got out of it

Elon is a truly inspiring guy – pushing me to want to do and accomplish more